The Bug
by Puddle-Jumper38
Summary: John and Rodney are alone off world... or so they thought. No pairings. Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis. Unfortunately.


**The Bug**

**A/N: **Minor spoilers for 38 Minutes, Conversion and The Storm.

Normally no less than four people from Atlantis would go offworld, however M7X 289 was different. It was uninhabited and, according to the Ancient database, had never had a native population, so there was little to no chance of a visit from the wraith. There was also nothing broadcasting, no signal or strange energy signature that would attack attention, just the single large Ancient machine in the middle of the Ancient ruins that was too large to be moved.

The machine had been a cause for excitement at first, but now it had proven to be either broken, or useless or (probably) both. Rodney had needed to check this out for himself, after all; no-one could match is genius. Yet after half a day there he was inclined to agree. Therefore, he would take one final look at it in the morning, before most likely declaring further investigation pointless.

All this meant that it was just him and John Sheppard spending the night on an alien planet with a broken (and probably useless) Ancient machine.

Or it had been.

Now it was just Rodney and John and The Bug.

They were spending the night in one of the few rooms of the Ancient ruins still standing enough to form a shelter. The shelter, however, was not perfect and Rodney thought this was nicely illustrated by the way the bug's antennae were swaying gently in the breeze.

The bug was large, a little smaller than the iratus bug, but certainly still large by Earth bug standards. It was a metallic light blue green colour that was glinting in the few shafts of moonlight that were getting into the shelter. It was perched on six spindly jointed legs.

Rodney decided he didn't like it. At all.

Yet there was an upside to the situation. The bug was sitting by John's blanket, on the other side of the room to Rodney. This meant that the bug was very definitely John's responsibility and all Rodney had to do was wake John up and he would take care of the bug and John taking care of the bug meant Rodney would not have to go any nearer to it.

'Sheppard?' called Rodney softly, so not to startle the bug. The bug twitched, Rodney pressed his back into the wall.

'Sheppard,' said Rodney, slightly louder. 'Wake up, you idiot.'

The bug crawled forwards in creepy jerky motions so that it was now sitting on the corner of John's blanket. Its new position put it about an inch from John's nose.

'Sheppard? John! Wake up!' snapped Rodney, much louder.

John's eyes opened. He saw the bug. Rodney relaxed; crisis over, John would get rid of the bug and their shelter would go back to being safe. Although he would prefer it if John would get a move on and get the bug out of Rodney's sight _quickly_.

The bug looked at John, John looked right back at the bug.

Rodney shifted. 'Do you think you could-'

'AHHHHHHHH!' yelled John, leaping up and throwing the blanket off him.

Rodney watched as the bug sailed across the room in a perfect parabola. As Rodney just so happened to be across the room, this put the bug firmly back in his court, so to speak.

The bug scuttled in Rodney's direction and Rodney decided that it was a good time to execute a strategic retreat and he began scrambling away.

The bug continued to scuttle towards him with disturbing, jerking movements until, suddenly and seemingly inexplicably, it exploded with a loud _bang_.

Rodney blinked and stopped retreating.

There was another bang, this time one Rodney recognised as a gunshot. He looked up to see John advancing on what was left of the bug with his hand gun, firing repeatedly as he approached.

Rodney surveyed the scene critically. 'Y'know I, uh, think it might be dead.'

John stopped firing and managed to tear his gaze from the remains that no longer resembled a bug to look at Rodney. 'What?'

Rodney gestured. 'The bug. I think it's dead.'

'Oh.' John examined his handiwork. 'Yeah, I guess it is.'

'I appreciated that the bug is gone,' Rodney told him, not wanting to sound ungrateful, because he really, really, did appreciate it. 'But did you have to turn it into a paste?'

John gave him an insolent look. 'Yes.'

Then he put his hand gun away, took out his P90 and switched on the light. John began prowling around their shelter, the way Rodney imagined he'd prowled around Atlantis killing Genii in their first year, shining the light into all the corners.

'What are you doing?' asked Rodney, before realising it was painfully obvious. Rodney looked around nervously. 'Do you think there are more?'

John finished his inspection of the room, collected his blanket and sat down. 'No, looks like just the one.'

Rodney thought about that for a moment, and chose to believe it. One bug, that was all. Then he considered his friend's reaction. 'Do you have a thing about bugs? It's just the whole shooting it into a paste thing.'

John rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, because you were absolutely calm and zen about it, Rodney.'

'It was closer to you!' argued Rodney. 'Therefore it was up to you to deal with it.'

'Except when it was closer to you and you were wildly scrambling away from it,' pointed out John, smirking.

'Fine. Okay, I didn't like it,' Rodney admitted. 'But neither did you! And you must have some kind of thing about bugs to shoot it into oblivion!'

'Gee, Rodney, I can't imagine why I might have a problem with giant alien bugs!' snapped John. 'And might I remind you that it was right in front of my damn face!'

Right. Rodney had temporarily forgotten about the iratus bug incident that must never be mentioned under any circumstances _and _the turned-into-a-bug incident that fit right into the same category.

'Okay, fine.' Rodney headed back towards his own temporary bed.

'Yeah. So next time, tell me about the giant bug _before_ it's practically on my nose,' complained John. 'Now get some sleep and in the morning you can look at that machine, finally decide it is useless, and we can get the hell out of here, okay?'

'Yes, yes,' said Rodney, lying back down, but only after thoroughly checking his blanket for bugs.

He tried to sleep, he really did, but the bug kept creeping into his thoughts with its nasty spindly legs. Then there was a faint chirping sounds and Rodney bolted up right. He looked over at John, opening his mouth to defend his automatic reaction to the sound, only to close it again when he saw John had done the same thing.

'Probably nothing,' said John, a little warily. 'None of the other teams have reported seeing bugs.'

'Yes, nothing,' agreed Rodney, eyeing the bug paste in the middle of the floor. 'So, uh, sleep.'

'Yeah,' answered John, but he made no move to lie back down again.

Rodney sat there, looking at John. John looked at the bug paste, grimaced, and looked away again.

In very deliberate movements, that wouldn't attract any bugs that might happen to be outside, Rodney took out his tablet from his pack.

'So,' he asked John. 'Chess?'


End file.
